The War in Israel and a 50 Year Old Observation on the Intractable Nature of the Conflict

Fifty years ago, Golda Meir made what seems now to be a stunning observation/prophecy.

“We cannot forgive the Arabs for killing our sons. We cannot forgive them for inciting us to kill their sons. Peace will only come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”

Golda Meir, Fourth Prime Minister of Israel 
and the first female head of state in the Middle East

Examine that quote. I am not pointing to the attitude toward forgiveness. I am not holding Golda Meir to a Christian standard of forgiveness. I am struck instead by her comment related to “inciting us to kill their sons.” There is grief in that phrase. There is remorse in that phrase. There is love for human life in that phrase, love, even for her enemy in that statement.

Grief at the loss of Arab lives on the part of the Jews. 
No grief at the loss of Jewish lives on the part of the Arab world.

And that is at the heart of the problem in the Middle East. Golda Meir had discerned a difference in the worldview of the Arab world and its rhetoric and the worldview of Israel and its leadership. She knew it 50 years ago.  In 2004, Hassan Nasrallah, in an interview explained “why Hizballah, the organization he heads, is destined to prevail over Israel: ‘The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.'”*

“In 2007, two years before he killed thirteen people and wounded twenty-nine at Fort Hood, Texas, Nidal Malik Hasan prepared a slide show for his fellow Army doctors on the subject of Islam. One of his last points read: “We love death more than you love life!”* 

In 2012, on Hamas TV, Hamas leadership issued a warning to Israel, making Golda Meir’s observation sound prescient.

Hamas TV to Israelis:
We “love death more than you love life”

Statement by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
 
Yes, that is the problem, and that is why Golda Meir was right, “Peace will only come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”
 
So pray. Pray that the hearts of both the Israelis and the hearts of the Arab world will be changed by the Prince of Peace, and that both will love life more than death, and that both will turn to the only One who can satisfy the longing heart.
 
 
 

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